UK heads European push for targets on red tape

Britain, France, Germany and 16 other EU countries have written to the European Commission to demand targets for slashing red tape on business, backing David Cameron’s call for less bureaucracy as part of his renegotiation of the U.K.’s membership of the bloc.

“Unnecessary burdens in EU legislation must be removed while always taking into account proper protection of consumers, health, the environment, employees and financial market stability and respecting existing protection standards,” it reads.

While welcoming Brussels’ ideas for streamlining Commission workflows and focusing on competitiveness, the letter — a copy of which was obtained by POLITICO — asks for further efforts “to ensure that this commitment translates into action.”

The ministers argue that economic recovery in Europe has not yet been secured for the long term and global competition is fierce, meaning that growth and productivity in the EU must be boosted. They propose setting targets to reduce regulation in what they describe as “particularly burdensome” areas for business.

A U.K. government source said the EU ministers’ anti-bureaucracy initiative “reinforces” Cameron’s call, set out in his letter to European Council President Donald Tusk earlier this month, for reforms that would help persuade Britons to vote against a “Brexit.”

The Conservative prime minister has promised to campaign for continued EU membership, in an In/Out referendum to be held by the end of 2017, if Britain’s demands are met.

Negotiations on Britain’s demands are scheduled to take place at an EU summit in December and will focus on four areas: protecting the single market for non-eurozone countries like Britain; boosting competitiveness (Cameron wants it written “into the DNA” of the EU); allowing Britain to opt out of EU ambitions for an “ever closer union:” and restricting access to welfare benefits for EU migrants.

However, the EU’s chief negotiator on U.K. membership — veteran EU administrator Jonathan Faull, who is British — said in Ireland on Wednesday that Cameron and his EU counterparts were still a long way from agreeing a deal. An opinion poll in the Independent newspaper this week suggested that more than half of the U.K. public now supports Brexit.

The letter to Timmermans was signed by Austria, Britain, Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, Croatia, Cyprus, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Hungary, Ireland, Italy, Lithuania, Malta, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain and Sweden — countries which together represent more than four-fifths of the economic output of the EU.

The ministers who signed it want it to serve as the basis for discussion with Timmermans at next Monday’s meeting of EU business ministers at the Competitiveness Council, they said in the letter.